McDonald's halal meal controversy doesn't taste right

Reports of a recent lawsuit settled between McDonald's and a Dearborn resident with the former agreeing to pay about $700,000 has raised more questions than it has answered.

The story is about a man buying a chicken sandwich from McDonald's and later finding out (I don't know how) that the chicken was not halal. There's no way one can look at a piece of meat and say whether it is halal or not. Perhaps the man had heard the story of that particular McDonald's location selling non-halal meals when they ran out of the actual halal ones and decided to investigate the matter.

As long as McDonald's has been fined to pay the price because it lied about the meal and made people eat something that's against their faith, it's good. Faith is a very sensitive subject and people's religious beliefs must be respected.

But the question here is what is halal meat. In this case, the sandwich wasn't considered halal because the chicken used in the meal was bought from a slaughterhouse where they don't say God's name when the chicken is being slaughtered. So if you take God out of equation, there is no problem.

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And what if you say God's name when you eat that non-halal chicken? Wouldn't that make it halal? Just a different timing. But, hey, the God is still the same.

I personally know a lot of Muslims who have no problem eating chicken at McDonald's, KFC, Burger King or any other fast food outlet. Their concept is the same: "So what if somebody didn't say God's name when the chicken was being slaughtered. We can say it now."

But there are some people who don't believe in this and are so orthodox that they wouldn't even eat Subway's tuna sandwich, because it could have been sliced with a knife that touched pork or any non-halal meat.

That is personal choice. But I see a bigger issue. Has anyone noticed those stores selling halal meat actually charge more money for the same meat, only because it is halal? Just because a vast number of people are forced by their faith to buy food from them doesn't mean they should make extra money on that. I don't think there's any quality or health issue with the expensive meat. In fact, you are more likely to trust Kroger or Meijer on food quality than some Mr Rahim's halal food (fake name) in the middle of nowhere.

I don't know of any instances in the United States, but I grew up in a country where halal food can be more toxic than those little Chinese toys. In Pakistan, where I was born, food-related diseases have killed more people than the terrorists have killed.

So, if you are a halal meat fan, next time when you see kids dying of some poisonous food or pay more bucks for the halal chicken, ask yourself this question: Is this halal?

But who cares about those kids.

Hey you know what, Beyonce lip-synched the national anthem at President Barack Obama's inauguration.